Petro-Politics and Democratic Deficit: Oil, Elite Capture, and the Crisis of Governance in Nigeria, 1960

Authors

Daniel Perekebena Kelly Federal University Otuoke, Bayelsa, Nigeria Author https://orcid.org/0009-0003-5406-4595
Opara Ikechukwu Gerald Federal University Otuoke, Bayelsa, Nigeria Author https://orcid.org/0009-0006-3591-7910
Amadi Chinumezi Godwin University of Tuscia, Viterbo, Italy Author https://orcid.org/0009-0001-4979-7247

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.66277/rir.1.1.222

Keywords:

Petro-Politics, Interlegality, Elite Capture, Democratic Deficit, Oil Governance, Nigeria

Abstract

Oil made Nigeria rich, but it did not produce a legal order capable of sustaining democratic governance. Since independence in 1960, petroleum governance has been shaped by the interaction of multiple normative regimes, including formal state law, administrative regulation, and informal patronage practices. This study examines how these overlapping legalities have structured petro-politics, enabled elite capture, and reproduced a persistent democratic deficit in Nigeria from 1960 to 2024. Adopting a qualitative case study with a historical-analytical approaches, the research draws on archival materials, official records, legislative reports, judicial documents, and established scholarship. It conceptualises petroleum governance as an interlegal field in which formal legal frameworks are continuously negotiated and instrumentalised within informal political practices. The findings show that successive military and civilian administrations have operated through a hybrid normative order, where formal regulations coexist with and are frequently subordinated to patronage networks and elite bargaining. Petroleum revenues function not only as economic resources but also as instruments for reshaping the meaning and application of law, enabling elite consolidation, weakening accountability, and sustaining extractive governance. Reforms such as the Petroleum Industry Act of 2021 and the removal of fuel subsidies in 2023 introduced formal adjusments but were reabsorbed into existing configurations without altering underlying incentives. This study concludes that Nigeria’s democratic deficit is rooted not only in its petroleum-dependent political economy but in the interlegal dynamics through which formal and informal orders are mutually constituted. It contributes by demonstrating how interlegality operates as a mechanism in the reproduction of democratic erosion across regime types.

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